


revision

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: Chapter and Verse (Varric Tethras x Min Hawke) [16]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Dragon Age II - Act 3, F/M, Slow Burn, The Hanged Man (Dragon Age), Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 21:42:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16668832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: Hawke makes a clumsy mistake at the worst possible time, and Varric gets angry.  Pity that Varric writes with indelible ink.





	revision

Min Hawke saw the mistake unfold in a fraction of a breath, and yet she was powerless to stop it.  She felt as if she had been slugged by one of her father’s force spells, slowing her ability to move and forcing her to watch her clumsiness play out in excruciating detail.   **  
**

In one split second, she’d jauntily planted herself on Varric’s letter-strewn table, ready to shine a winning smile at her favorite dwarf.  It’d been a good night full of crushing slavers, Fenris and Anders and Isabela were waiting with drinks downstairs, couldn’t Varric finish up what he was doing, didn’t he want to come and join them in a round –

In the next split second, she leaned back and rested her weight on one hand, knocking the previously-unseen bottle of jet-black ink onto its side.  She could only watch helplessly as liquid obsidian torrented out of the bottle, flooding her trouser leg and nearly every scrap of paper visible.

Time returned to its normal speed, and with it a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.  Hawke leapt up off the table, cold ink seeping down the thick cloth of her trousers.  Varric sprung forward, trying to rescue the stack of vellum from the onslaught.  He came away with two handfuls of sodden paper, dripping black, and stared at her with his mouth open.

She found her voice, stammering.  “Oh Varric, I’m so sorry.  I didn’t mean –”

Varric’s hands twisted on the papers, black smearing against his gloves and the cuffs of his sleeves.  His face was always a bit ruddy, but she’d never seen him like this, bright red, mouth pulled tight and taut.  “ _Fuck_!” he hissed.

“Surely it’s not all that bad,” she began.  “I mean, I’m sure you recall what you were writing –”

Varric stood there, and for a moment it looked as if he was battling a host of different responses.  His mouth twitched, his eyes narrowed, and for a moment, she wondered if those were, horribly, tears.  Then he gritted his teeth, and she realized she had been mistaken.  

“Maker’s  _breath_ , Hawke, look what you did!  I was working on this shit –”

“It was an accident!  You should have made sure the cap was on!” she retorted defensively, half-bewildered at the sudden turn to the evening.  She searched for something to say, anything, but when the words left her mouth, she winced at how petulant they sounded.  “What was it, then, that was so valuable?”

“It – that doesn’t matter,” he snapped.  “What matters is that it’s gone.  I’ll have to start from scratch.  Fuck, fuck,  _fuck_.”

“I said I was sorry, Varric!”

He took several deep breaths, shoulders shaking with the action, swallowing.  He looked up at her, then sighed.  “Just leave me alone, Hawke.”

“Fine,” she said, and turned and left, squelching black ink against her legs with every step.

***

Varric watched her go, still breathing hard.  She closed the door behind herself with a faint snick of the lock.  He looked down at his hands.  His fingers were wet through his gloves.  The papers, once stiff and new and covered with neat looping script, hung limply in his grasp.

He lifted the top paper, which was fully saturated.  He set it down on the ink-slicked table, sighing.  It wasn’t until he was three pages in that he could make out any of the words he had carefully, laboriously set down.

 _Bianca, I –_  [smudge]  _sorry this is how –_  [smudge]  _always care –_ [smudge] _I can’t –_  [smudge]

He gazed at it, hands trembling.  He’d pored over this particular letter for days now, trying to find the right way to say it, a mythic and magic constellation of words.  He’d finally found it, he’d thought. A way to present a meticulous curation of the truth, a way to wound as little as possible.

He hadn’t meant to snap.  It was just he’d hardly slept with the weight of it, wrestling with the decision, sure that he was making a mistake and just as sure, finally, that it was a bigger mistake  _not_  to do what he was doing.  

And now it all was dripping wet and dark and ruined, every careful turn of phrase, every fraught consideration of her feelings.  Hours of work and worry,  _years_  of it, utterly wasted.

He chuckled, a dry, pained sound that wasn’t anything like funny.  Of course it was Hawke, Hawke of all people, to inadvertently destroy the decision he’d been aching over for weeks….

He made out a few more words, nearly smudged beyond readability.   _There’s somebody else –_

Another dry, hollow chuckle.  He wadded up the papers and tossed them onto the table, then retrieved a spare cloth from his wardrobe and methodically mopped up the ink.  He shook his head ruefully.  He was going to have to purchase the table from the Hanged Man for this, he mused.  At least it was classier than stains in the Hanged Man usually were: ink was a real step up from blood or vomit.  He scrubbed gamely at the table’s surface.

Varric paused his cleaning for a moment, his hand stilling as it brushed against his fountain pen.  He nodded, closing his eyes.

He’d written it once.  He could write it again.

***

Hawke stared sullenly at her drink, curling her nose up at it.  She shifted on the bar rag she was sitting on, regretting the ink spill intensely.  Her arse itched.  She hoped she wasn’t allergic to Varric’s ink.  She’d briefly considered going back home to change, but schlepping it to Hightown and back would have taken most of the evening.  She huffed, adjusting uncomfortably, and watched for the return of Fenris and Isabela.  They were due any minute with their next round.

“Still upset?” asked Anders beside her, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek.  She was glad that he at least was in a decent mood tonight.  It felt like it had been such a long time since they had been here at the Hanged Man together.  She reached out and squeezed his hand. 

He gave her a sympathetic smile, but it looked rather wan.  She still couldn’t get used to how pale he looked against those dark robes.  She missed the old set in blue and green.

“You didn’t see him, Anders,” Hawke said.  “You know Varric.  He’s only ever been angry at Bartrand, really.  And I ruined whatever he was doing.  Probably his next bestselling novel,  _Hardest in Hightown: Hard Harder_.”

“Well when you say it that way, it does sound rather serious.”

“Oh come off it, it’s wretched having Varric of all people angry at me.  Varric’s the only one of our lot who isn’t a temperamental fool now and then, myself included,” Hawke muttered.

“He doesn’t look especially angry,” said Anders with a mild raise of his brows.  “Or perhaps I’m reading the signals wrong, but I don’t believe I am.”

Hawke glanced over to where Anders was looking, and noted Varric carrying two pints.  She blinked in surprise as he approached.  She noted with a bit of jealousy that  _he_ had been able to change out of his ink-stained clothing.

She reached out and touched his shoulder, just briefly.  “Varric, I’m so sorry –” Hawke began.

Varric set down the pints on their table.  “Nah, I’m sorry, Hawke.  It was an accident.  I should’ve made sure the bottle was closed.”

“Well, who hasn’t left it uncapped and come to regret it?  We all have, of course,” she said.  “I’m still sorry.  Your work’s been ruined.”

Varric shook his head, waving a hand.  “Don’t worry about it.  Really, it’s all right.  I’ve got the gist down, and I’ll figure the rest out as I go.”

“You mean it?” asked Hawke.  The sick feeling that had been squirming in her stomach for the past hour began to fade.  She grinned, feeling much lighter.  “It’s just, you were so upset.  I ought to have been more careful.”

“You should have seen her,” said Anders fondly, nudging her gently with his shoulder.  “She’s been making herself sick about upsetting you, you see.”

“Oh hush, Anders.”   _True enough, though,_  she thought.

Varric slid one of the pints over to her, and picked up the other.  “Come on,” he said, and flashed one of those broad, easy smiles she so liked about him.  “What’s a little revision between friends?”

“Cheers to that, Varric.”

“Cheers, Hawke.”


End file.
